Almost Naked, Inc. Read online

  “Orgasms are biological. Want me to prove it?” Matt asked

  Bridget laughed. And it made him smile.“Exactly what hypothesis would you offer to prove?”

  He took her into his arms. “The main physical changes that occur during a sexual experience are a result of vasocongestion.”

  “English, please.” She stepped back.

  “It means accumulation of blood in various parts of the body. Muscular tension increases and other—”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but in an experiment, doesn’t the scientist perform?”

  Matt grinned and pulled her close again. “As a scientist who’s very interested in experimenting on you, I can say I definitely can perform.”

  “Talk, talk, talk. How about some action?” And she twined her arms around his neck.

  He hesitated, recognizing the danger, but decided for once in his life he wasn’t going to plan things out. The bottom line was he wanted her. He wanted her badly. And he would now stop at nothing to have her.

  Dear Reader,People go to a lot of trouble to find themselves. Some walk a spiritual path, others go on the trip of their dreams and some find that what they were so desperately searching for is right in their own backyard.

  Bridget Cole can relate. She returns to Cambridge, Massachusetts, after losing key modeling contracts in New York City. But she’s convinced that she’ll return to the Big Apple to regain what she’s lost. She doesn’t bank on sexy Matt Fox, her childhood friend and the boy next door. At sixteen, she dared him to kiss her in an intimate game of truth or dare and she has never gotten over it. Now Matt’s back on the scene and looking to pick up where they left off….

  I thank you for taking the time to read my book and hope it brings you much enjoyment. Let me know. Drop me a line in care of Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada, or visit my Web site at www.karenanders.com.

  Happy reading!

  Karen Anders

  Books by Karen Anders

  HARLEQUIN BLAZE22—THE BARE FACTS

  43—HOT ON HER TAIL

  74—THE DIVA DIARIES

  103—HERS TO TAKE*

  111—YOURS TO SEDUCE*

  119—MINE TO ENTICE*

  154—MANHANDLING

  KAREN ANDERS

  Almost Naked, Inc.

  To Melanie Martin for her friendship and pink pop-ups.

  A special thanks to Marlies Durso for her invaluable help with all things relating to the fashion industry and to Liz Quigley for her insights on the inner workings of the garden club.

  All mistakes are mine.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Prologue

  Truth or Dare—Twelve years ago

  BRIDGET COLE’S FACE was classically beautiful, and even from a distance her skin looked creamy and flawless. Her hair tumbled down her back to her waist, the color of opulent amber—a budding woman who was all pink cotton candy seduction and mouthwatering honey.

  The focus of Matthew Fox’s fantasies stood at the bottom of the basement stairs talking to a dark-haired girl.He noticed every shift her body made as she smiled and nodded her head at something the other girl said.

  The short striped pink miniskirt left her smooth, slender thighs bare and fueled his imagination and male hormones. He knew it was one of her designs. She’d showed him the sketch of the skirt last week, saying softly that her mother thought it was just doodling. Deft with a needle and thread, she’d made the pink concoction from her own pattern.

  But it wasn’t the clothing that interested him as he took in the view, his gaze sliding upward. His mouth went dry as he took in curvaceous hips, a slim waist and a top that molded to ample, perfectly rounded breasts and showed the faint outline of her nipples pressing against the pink, stretchy fabric of her top.

  At sixteen, he was now quite well aware of what it meant to want someone in the physical sense, except he had all these pent-up feelings for her that were quite inconvenient. Hormones won out, a hard thing to swallow as Matt prided himself on his intellect. He cut himself a break, since he was, after all, a teenage boy.

  She had soft, full lips and a sweet mouth designed to give all kinds of erotic pleasure. The thought caused his stomach to tighten with awareness and made other parts of his anatomy leap to attention, as well.

  He caught her eye and she smiled like an angel. Matt felt everything inside him tense. A jumble of feelings and emotions only made him all the more confused, caught between his body’s needs and his mind’s awareness.

  Bridget was a complication Matt didn’t know how to handle.

  Bridget was his friend.

  A very beautiful and sexy friend who had grown from a petite blond dynamo to a sleek, sophisticated sixteen-year-old girl.

  They were worlds apart. She was on the beauty pageant circuit and he was headed for a prestigious college. Her parents were wealthy. His parents weren’t. He liked math and she hated it. A girl that was so far out of his league, he was crazy to even think he had a chance with her.

  Her party was in full swing and they were all in the basement to play Trivial Pursuit. With her no-holds-barred attitude, Bridget had convinced her aunt to host this teen party without her mother’s knowledge. He couldn’t blame her aunt. He was also under Bridget’s spell.

  Bridget had personally invited him. Since he lived next door, he was a frequent visitor whenever Bridget visited her aunt. He also tutored Bridget in math and let her look through his telescope.

  He stood off to the side, his back to the wall, his hands buried deep in his pockets.

  Her other guests started to gather in a circle. Bridget started across the room and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. The way she moved was a sensual feast. She stopped in front of him. “Let’s play.”

  “Trivial Pursuit,” he said, getting lost in her big blue eyes.

  “Truth or Dare. It’ll be much more fun.”

  As effectively as if she’d thrown cold water on him, he shut down. Shaking his head, he said, “No. Not interested.”

  “Come on, Bridget, leave the nerd alone. He doesn’t want to play,” said a spiky-haired blond guy who looked as if he could crush bricks in his hands.

  “Shut up, Mike, and mind your own business,” Bridget said, turning to the boy with a fierce look on her face. When she turned back around, she said softly. “Don’t mind him. He can be a jerk.”

  Matt suspected the guy was a jerk, but he could care less what the jerk thought of him. He shrugged.

  “Matt, you don’t have to watch from the sidelines.”

  “I’m not playing, Bridget.”

  “Fine,” she said, her blue eyes snapping. “Suit yourself.”

  Keeping his own counsel, he watched with a deep interest.

  “Bridget, since it’s your party, why don’t you pick the person who’ll go first?” the dark-haired girl said.

  Bridget nodded and smiled easily. “How about you, Stephanie?”

  “Okay,” Stephanie said, singling out a curly redhead. “Tonia. Truth or dare.”

  The girl thought for a moment and said, “Dare.”

  Stephanie said, “The two closest members of the opposite sex get to slap your butt as hard as they want to! Bend over and take it with a smile!”

  Tonia giggled and looked at the two boys next to her. Turning around, she presented her backside to them and eac
h slapped her bottom. One boy harder than the other.

  The redhead turned back around and said, “Brittany, truth or dare?”

  The petite, blonde smiled shyly and said, “Truth.”

  “What was the most passionate moment you have ever experienced? Describe it for the group.”

  As the girl started talking, Matt watched Bridget who kept giving him surreptitious, frowning looks. As the game progressed, inevitably someone called out Bridget’s name and she, of course, said, “Dare.”

  The person who called her name, a guy that Matt knew was friends with Mike said, “French-kiss Mike, locking tongues for fifteen seconds.”

  Matt tensed, his back pulling away from the wall, his hands tightening into fists deep in his pockets.

  “Hey, it’s time for party snacks,” her aunt yelled from the top of the stairs, a few seconds warning before she started down. Bridget looked over her shoulder, gauging the time it would take her aunt to make it to the bottom. She turned back to the boy then looked up at Matt. Their eyes met and clung. Bridget’s eyes widened as she stared at him. He was sure the fierce need to do bodily harm to a guy twice his size was clear in his eyes.

  For the first time in his life, his withdrawal mechanism failed him. His innermost desires were visible in his eyes and Bridget finally knew how he felt about her. What he didn’t know was how she felt about it.

  Her smile faded. She pulled away from the boy’s advance and sat back on her heels.

  Her aunt appeared and began to usher everyone up the stairs. “Bridget?” she said, looking at her niece.

  “I’ll be up in a minute, Aunt Ida.”

  Her aunt took one look at Matt and nodded. She followed behind the retreating teens.

  Bridget rose in that graceful, sexy way she moved and walked toward him. Stopping in front of him, she looked deep into his eyes. “Truth or dare, Matt?”

  Caught off guard, he simply stared at her.

  She stepped closer and her voice dropped an octave. “Truth or dare?”

  He didn’t know what made him say it. It came out of his mouth in a hoarse whisper. “Dare.”

  Blue fire danced in the depths of her eyes. “Kiss me.”

  Matt swallowed hard, caught up and held in that blue flame until it engulfed him completely. Lifting his hand, he touched the side of her throat. Her skin felt like rich warm velvet. She licked her lips and he honed in on them, dipping his head, moving slowly to savor each second, breathe in her scent, absorb the heat of her skin, anticipating the taste of her mouth.

  “Matt,” she breathed softly, the blue flames in her eyes burning hotter, kissing him with intense heat.

  The feel of her lips beneath his was exquisite, warm and heated and undeniably demanding. When their tongues touched, then tangled silkily, fire licked through him, deep and low. She tasted forbidden and decadent, like wild, untamed lust, and he felt an amazing sense of himself as a boy on the brink of manhood.

  He groaned at the incredible surge of hot, carnal lust that kicked up his adrenaline a few notches. He felt primal and possessive and ravenous; unable to get enough of this girl who affected him not only sexually, but on a deeper level he’d yet to fully define. All he knew was he had to have her, all her sass, her devil-may-care attitude, and her curvy, enticing body.

  “Bridget!” her mother called from the top of the stairs and Bridget jumped away from Matt.

  “Oh dammit. She never lets up,” she cried, giving Matt an apologetic look before she headed for the stairs.

  Too late. Her mother materialized at the bottom. She took one look at Matt and Bridget. Her mouth thinned as she shot daggers at him with those scary eyes.

  She grabbed Bridget by the arm and dragged her up the stairs. He could hear her mother railing at Bridget for going behind her back and having a party.

  Matt stood in the basement getting the terrible feeling he was never going to see her again. Dread formed a lead ball in his stomach as he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

  There was something to be said for looking but not touching.

  Now that he knew what it was like to touch her, he would never be the same again.

  1

  Twelve years later

  ANTICIPATION THRUMMED like a taut wire through Matt’s system as he turned at the sound of a car stopping at the curb. Like a sleek black panther, a stretch limo idled in front of the majestic twin columns of the Meadow Hills Country Club. He immediately thought that perhaps there were going to be celebrities at the fiftieth birthday bash Bridget Cole was throwing for her aunt Ida.

  But when Bridget Cole’s aunt emerged from the limo, the anticipation simmering inside him ever since Aunt Ida had invited him to the party, tightened into a hard ball in his gut.Bridget’s aunt wore a beautiful black gown with shiny beads that caught and reflected the light. Her blond hair was piled on top of her head in an elaborate upsweep that was very flattering for a woman who was turning fifty. But Bridget had a handsome family, her aunt included. He suspected good genes accounted for that.

  Other people emerged from the limo: Bridget’s mother, who narrowed her eyes at him as if she couldn’t quite place him, then her father and other people who he suspected were members of the family he hadn’t met. They all paused next to the limo waiting for what looked like the last passenger. An enormous package tied with a gold ribbon appeared in the doorway of the limo clasped in delicate hands tipped with silver nails.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bridget’s mother touch her sister’s arm and lean toward her to speak, but his attention was focused on the passenger behind the large gift.

  Since no one stepped forward to help with the huge package, he approached the limo and took the beautifully wrapped gift that blocked his view of the seat beyond and the owner of those delicate hands.

  His anticipation kicked up another agonized notch. One of the family members said thanks and took the present out of his hands. With a jolt, he came face-to-face with Bridget.

  Matt heard Bridget suck in a quick breath and watched her eyes widen. Unbridled excitement hummed in the air as their eyes locked and held across the short space that separated them. For a moment they stared at each other, twelve years and a daring kiss separating them. “Matt,” she said softly, a wealth of meaning embedded in his name.

  The memory of her hot mouth, her loss of control, the soft way she melted into him came back to him tenfold even though it had happened when he was sixteen. Clearly it had been her first thought, too, a memory so tantalizing it was mirrored in her deep blue eyes—thickly lashed eyes that ensnared him and always seemed to have a dare in them.

  “Are you going to help me out?”

  “Sorry,” he said stupidly and offered his open palm to her. She reached out and closed her fingers around his outstretched hand, the pads of her fingers nestling against his palm. The shock of her skin meeting his sent his mind into a tailspin.

  She smiled. “Matt, you need to back up.”

  “Right,” he said, taking a step back so that Bridget could fully exit the limo.

  Dressed in a silver gown, she was stunning—as if light was absorbed into her and reflected back out with a dazzling luminosity. The bodice molded to her breasts like a second skin, the straps crossing her collarbone to tie around the neck, leaving her back bare. Although he’d seen her glossy photo in too many magazines to name, dressed in many different ways, including racy ads in almost nothing but her skin, the sheer magnitude of her presence overwhelmed him. Seeing Bridget in the flesh again opened all the floodgates of tangled-up emotion and desire. Matt could only stand there with a sinking heart, realizing that Bridget had moved even further out of his reach.

  Now, more than time separated them.

  BRIDGET SAT at the head table eating with her aunt and the rest of her family, but she couldn’t stop searching the room for Matt’s face.

  The last time she’d seen him before tonight, he’d been standing against her aunt Ida’s basement wall, looking tortu
red and hot as sin. The short, skinny adolescent with the shock of dark hair and exotic eyes had changed into a tall, leanly muscled teenager, his dark hair tousled around his head, his devastating brown eyes glittering with potent male heat as he offered up a silent challenge to her. Mike had called him a nerd out of stupid male rivalry, but at sixteen, Matt was anything but. She’d been blindsided by her own emotions that afternoon, the deep-seated friendship morphing into something more dangerous, more intoxicating and wholly forbidden.The kiss they had shared had been the steamiest in her sixteen years and even in her naiveté, she had wanted something more from him. But she’d never gotten the chance to find out. Her mother had been so furious that night she had forbidden Bridget to visit her aunt. Her mother upped the pageant show entries and Bridget had been so busy traveling and winning that she’d never gotten the chance to see Matt again. It hurt her feelings that he hadn’t ever tried to get in touch with her.

  Ever since she could remember, Matt had lived next door to her favorite aunt. He’d always tried to cheer her up when her mother made her cry. He had been her sounding board, her conscience and her friend. That was until that kiss in the basement of her aunt’s house.

  While Bridget was chasing fame and fortune, Matt had changed—a lot. He still had those deep fathomless eyes, slightly tipped at the corners. Eyes that seemed to hold the wealth of the universe in them, but his face had matured into a man’s. A gorgeous man at that. His shoulders had widened and his chest broadened. He still had that smart, studious air about him, a calm, detached demeanor that made her want to rile him up and see what happened.

  Something shifted inside her, a tightness settling around her heart. It wouldn’t matter how she felt about Matt right now or ever. Their paths had diverged completely. Bridget wanted what modeling could bring her—the fast life. Matt, on the other hand, was very much settled into the academic life, a slow life that was far removed from her world of glamour and parties.